Government required incoming trust to launch review, on grounds of “financial viability”, which may close secondary sections of three small former Steiner academies

The government handed three free schools for three-to-16-year-olds to an incoming academy trust –on condition that the new chain “review” their structures in a move which seems likely to lead to the closure of their secondary classes.

Civil servants had suggested that the operation of the small all-through schools operated under the Steiner “brand” was not “viable” without “significant changes” to their structures, in a move which, if taken at face value, casts doubt on the future of small secondaries elsewhere.

The internal communications have been revealed through a Freedom of Information response to parents at the former Steiner schools, which were transferred to the Avanti Schools Trust – which runs Hindu faith academies although these ones are said to be “non-denominational” - in November.

Whether or not two of the schools, in Bristol and Frome in Somerset, would continue to operate secondary classes was due to be discussed and seemingly decided on last week at the regional “Headteacher Board”.

However - scandalously, to this observer, if depressingly predictably, given the way the academies policy has been set up to operate – the Department for Education has refused to disclose directly to this community what the decision was.